SEVIS : Success or Disaster?

Despite repeated pleas from all of America’s
major universities, despite continuing declines in foreign graduate students
coming to the United States, despite lengthy delays and difficulties
in obtaining student visas, and despite repeated breakdowns and glitches
in implementation of SEVIS, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information
System, an electronic tracking system designed to make sure Foreign Students
actually study, and leave the country when they finish, the Department
of Homeland Security is declaring the program a success.

Homeland Security officials are touting the success of
the 1-year-old Web-based system that tracks foreign students at U.S.
universities and colleges and has led to 187 arrests for various violations.

A total of 8,737 colleges and exchange visitor programs,
representing more than 9,500 campuses, are certified to participate in
the program.
Information on more than 770,000 students and exchange visitors is
maintained in the database. The system also maintains records on more
than 100,000 dependents of students and exchange visitors.

from the Federal Computer Weekly